Coach's Original Musiquarium, Day 3.5
This is the homily that I delivered on Wednesday during our weekly noon worship service.
The devotional that I read today I made up on the drive up from G'burg. When I can (over the weekend) I'll write it up and post it.
I think that we can find God everywhere in the world. I think that we can hear God in the voice of friends. I think that we can see God in the actions of those around us. I think God speaks to us in the surroundings and situations that we encounter and face each and everyday of our lives. We only have to keep ourselves open to the message. One of the ways that I have heard God is in music.
Songs can contain a message that speaks to everyone differently. Songs can speak to you differently at different times in your life. The combination of word and music form a unique communication method. We hear the language of the lyrics, and can process the message intellectually. We feel the melody and the emotion it carries, and it speaks to our hearts. Their union provides us with a multilayered message that, when done well, can speak to our soul.
For a long time in my life, I lived a life away from God. I never stopped believing, but worshipping God and having a relationship with God wasn’t important to me. While I was starting to come back to God and realized I needed to have a relationship with God, the music of the band U2 was very important to me.
My college roommate introduced me to U2. U2 is a rock and roll band made up of four Irishmen from Dublin. All of the members are devout Christians, and have struggled to balance their religious beliefs and demands with that of being international rock and roll stars. Many of the songs they have written have Christian messages, but not all of their songs do.
One of their songs that has spoken deeply to me is “Walk On.” The lyrics are on the back of the bulletin you have. This song was on their 2000 album “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.” Although it was written before the September 11th attacks, it became significant to many people after 9/11. The song was written about a political prisoner being separated from her family, but its themes of loss and separation are universal.
The song begins by stating, “The only baggage you can bring is all that you can't leave behind.” We all view every encounter and situation in our lives through the filter of our past experiences. The pains, scars and hurts of our lives form who we are. We bring the baggage of our lives with us, because we cannot discard it.
The baggage is with us, especially when we are worried, in mourning, or depressed. “And if the darkness is to keep us apart, and if the daylight feels like it's a long way off, and if your glass heart should crack and for a second you turn back, oh no, be strong.” When you are facing the trials and tribulations of a hospital visit, especially if it is unexpected or extended, you can feel that you are engulfed in the solitary darkness of sorrow, the midnight of misery. And the daylight does seem a long way off, almost as if it may never come. But for the Lord, as the Psalmist writes in Psalm 139: "If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you." (Psalm 139:11-12)
One of the most profound lines, one that drew me to this song for the way a subtle turn of a phrase made such a profound statement about faith is after the chorus. “You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been, a place that has to be believed to be seen.” I thought that Bono was a genius for developing this incredible theological insight. No matter how devout our faith is, no matter how sure we are in the promised life to come through God, it is still an act of faith. Ultimately, we are going to take the baggage that we have accumulated throughout our lives, the baggage that IS us, to a place that we can only get to if we believe in it. I thought this insight was so incredibly profound and deep. It is and it was incredibly profound, when it was written in the letter to the Hebrews: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) No matter where it originated, it is true that our faith is in that which we cannot see, and that we cannot prove our faith. But that faith, that trust in God is what allows us to break free of the baggage that we cannot leave behind.
Our attachment to that baggage is limiting us and holding us back. But our faith is what can keep us going on. It is our faith that is being referred to when we are told to: “Walk on, walk on. What you've got they can't deny it, Can’t sell it, can’t buy it. Walk on, walk on. Stay safe tonight.” Our faith, our trust in God is what can keep us going during the darkest and hardest times.
In this institution, and others like it, many people are tested to their breaking point. They are taken to the ends of their existence either physically, emotionally or spiritually. Sometimes all of them at once. Their experience here brings them, takes them farther than they think they can bare. It stretches their heart. “And I know it aches, and your heart it breaks and you can only take so much.”
The only way that we can continue to Walk On is because we are not walking alone. The Bible and the Quo’ran both tell of how the faithful walked with God. Enoch, Noah and Moses all walked with God. God promises to walk with the faithful, to walk with His people, especially in the difficult times. As the prophet Isaiah wrote: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” (Isaiah 43:2)
God is with us through the most difficult times of our lives. God lifts us up, supports us and sustains us, helping us to continue to go on, when we have lost the strength to go on by our selves. When we are unable to go on, to take one more step, God tells us to walk on. Because of our faith that we have no one can deny it, they can’t sell it or buy it. Our faith will keep us safe. Our faith can allow us to check the baggage that we have been carrying around with us. It frees us from the burden of hauling it around because God has taken it from us. The song acknowledges that fact in the final refrain, because now “All this, you can leave behind.”
In the taxing days and trying nights of our lives, especially those spent here, we must remember that we are not going through this journey alone. We have the Almighty supporting us and encouraging us, each and every day, to Walk On.
U2 - Walk On from the 2002 Grammy Awards.
I love this version with all of the "Hallelujahs" at the end.
Sometimes I feel I've learned more about God from Bono, Edge, Larry & Adam than from Matthew, Mark, Luke & John because they speak to my heart.
The devotional that I read today I made up on the drive up from G'burg. When I can (over the weekend) I'll write it up and post it.
I think that we can find God everywhere in the world. I think that we can hear God in the voice of friends. I think that we can see God in the actions of those around us. I think God speaks to us in the surroundings and situations that we encounter and face each and everyday of our lives. We only have to keep ourselves open to the message. One of the ways that I have heard God is in music.
Songs can contain a message that speaks to everyone differently. Songs can speak to you differently at different times in your life. The combination of word and music form a unique communication method. We hear the language of the lyrics, and can process the message intellectually. We feel the melody and the emotion it carries, and it speaks to our hearts. Their union provides us with a multilayered message that, when done well, can speak to our soul.
For a long time in my life, I lived a life away from God. I never stopped believing, but worshipping God and having a relationship with God wasn’t important to me. While I was starting to come back to God and realized I needed to have a relationship with God, the music of the band U2 was very important to me.
My college roommate introduced me to U2. U2 is a rock and roll band made up of four Irishmen from Dublin. All of the members are devout Christians, and have struggled to balance their religious beliefs and demands with that of being international rock and roll stars. Many of the songs they have written have Christian messages, but not all of their songs do.
One of their songs that has spoken deeply to me is “Walk On.” The lyrics are on the back of the bulletin you have. This song was on their 2000 album “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.” Although it was written before the September 11th attacks, it became significant to many people after 9/11. The song was written about a political prisoner being separated from her family, but its themes of loss and separation are universal.
The song begins by stating, “The only baggage you can bring is all that you can't leave behind.” We all view every encounter and situation in our lives through the filter of our past experiences. The pains, scars and hurts of our lives form who we are. We bring the baggage of our lives with us, because we cannot discard it.
The baggage is with us, especially when we are worried, in mourning, or depressed. “And if the darkness is to keep us apart, and if the daylight feels like it's a long way off, and if your glass heart should crack and for a second you turn back, oh no, be strong.” When you are facing the trials and tribulations of a hospital visit, especially if it is unexpected or extended, you can feel that you are engulfed in the solitary darkness of sorrow, the midnight of misery. And the daylight does seem a long way off, almost as if it may never come. But for the Lord, as the Psalmist writes in Psalm 139: "If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’, even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you." (Psalm 139:11-12)
One of the most profound lines, one that drew me to this song for the way a subtle turn of a phrase made such a profound statement about faith is after the chorus. “You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been, a place that has to be believed to be seen.” I thought that Bono was a genius for developing this incredible theological insight. No matter how devout our faith is, no matter how sure we are in the promised life to come through God, it is still an act of faith. Ultimately, we are going to take the baggage that we have accumulated throughout our lives, the baggage that IS us, to a place that we can only get to if we believe in it. I thought this insight was so incredibly profound and deep. It is and it was incredibly profound, when it was written in the letter to the Hebrews: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) No matter where it originated, it is true that our faith is in that which we cannot see, and that we cannot prove our faith. But that faith, that trust in God is what allows us to break free of the baggage that we cannot leave behind.
Our attachment to that baggage is limiting us and holding us back. But our faith is what can keep us going on. It is our faith that is being referred to when we are told to: “Walk on, walk on. What you've got they can't deny it, Can’t sell it, can’t buy it. Walk on, walk on. Stay safe tonight.” Our faith, our trust in God is what can keep us going during the darkest and hardest times.
In this institution, and others like it, many people are tested to their breaking point. They are taken to the ends of their existence either physically, emotionally or spiritually. Sometimes all of them at once. Their experience here brings them, takes them farther than they think they can bare. It stretches their heart. “And I know it aches, and your heart it breaks and you can only take so much.”
The only way that we can continue to Walk On is because we are not walking alone. The Bible and the Quo’ran both tell of how the faithful walked with God. Enoch, Noah and Moses all walked with God. God promises to walk with the faithful, to walk with His people, especially in the difficult times. As the prophet Isaiah wrote: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” (Isaiah 43:2)
God is with us through the most difficult times of our lives. God lifts us up, supports us and sustains us, helping us to continue to go on, when we have lost the strength to go on by our selves. When we are unable to go on, to take one more step, God tells us to walk on. Because of our faith that we have no one can deny it, they can’t sell it or buy it. Our faith will keep us safe. Our faith can allow us to check the baggage that we have been carrying around with us. It frees us from the burden of hauling it around because God has taken it from us. The song acknowledges that fact in the final refrain, because now “All this, you can leave behind.”
In the taxing days and trying nights of our lives, especially those spent here, we must remember that we are not going through this journey alone. We have the Almighty supporting us and encouraging us, each and every day, to Walk On.
U2 - Walk On from the 2002 Grammy Awards.
I love this version with all of the "Hallelujahs" at the end.
Sometimes I feel I've learned more about God from Bono, Edge, Larry & Adam than from Matthew, Mark, Luke & John because they speak to my heart.
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